1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a structure for mounting an engine on a front side member of a vehicle, and, more particularly, to a structure for mounting an engine on a front side member of a vehicle adapted to enable an engine to be firmly mounted on a vehicle having a layout of a body constituting an engine room which does not permit an engine to be directly mounted on a side member.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, an engine for a motor vehicle is caused to be always vibrated owing to various factors such as reciprocating motions of a piston and a connecting rod, shaking of a connecting rod and variation of rotation cycle of a crank shaft. Such vibration is transmitted to a car""s passenger cab via a chassis frame or a body, thereby causing riding comfort to be deteriorated. For preventing such deterioration of riding comfort, an engine must be necessarily mounted using antivibration means(such as an insulator and a roll stopper which are generically referred to as engine mount or engine mounting).
On the other hand, since a support for an engine must alleviate or absorb vibration and withstand weight of an engine, the kind of an engine, configurations of a chassis and a body and so on must be taken into account to decide position, number and configuration of the support.
Consequently, engines are commonly mounted in various ways depending on kinds of vehicles.
Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown one of portions of a side member to which an engine is secured in case of a vehicle having an engine mounted on the side member of a front chassis frame.
In the engine mounting structure, the engine is adapted to be directly mounted on a predetermined position of an upper surface of the side member 10 without an additional fixing structure. Load of the engine transmitted to the engine mounting structure is wholly supported by the side member and is not dispersed and transmitted to peripheral body portions such as a front apron panel 20.
Where a point of the side member 10 at which an engine is mounted is greatly raised owing to considerable change of a layout during development of a certain vehicle, it is impossible to directly mount the engine on an upper surface of the side member 10.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made keeping in mind the above problems occurring in the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a structure for mounting an engine on a front side member of a vehicle which is capable of stably mounting an engine even when a mounting point for an engine is greatly raised, and capable of causing load of an engine to be dispersed and transmitted to peripheral components such as an apron panel, thereby achieving more stable engine mounting, so that required strengths of components used to constitute an elevated mounting seat are lowered, thereby allowing weights of the components to be minimized.
In order to accomplish the above object, the present invention provides a structure for mounting an engine on a front side member of a vehicle comprising: a side member; first and second reinforcing brackets attached to an upper surface of the side member; a mounting bracket attached to the first and second reinforcing brackets, and coupled to an apron side panel attached to an outer surface of the side member; and a support panel attached to the apron side panel for supporting the mounting bracket.
Therefore, the present invention enables an engine to be mounted on the mounting point, which is elevated by an increment corresponding to the height of both the reinforcing brackets. Furthermore, since the mounting bracket is connected to the apron side panel, load of an engine can be divided and transmitted to other components as well as the side member.